


Long Day ... Or Was it a Week?

by Boffin1710, Dassandre



Series: The Hole and Corner [6]
Category: James Bond (Craig movies)
Genre: Bars and Pubs, Comfort, Exhaustion, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-02
Updated: 2020-08-02
Packaged: 2021-03-06 03:55:23
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,989
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25676953
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Boffin1710/pseuds/Boffin1710, https://archiveofourown.org/users/Dassandre/pseuds/Dassandre
Summary: The Hole and Corner sees to the needs of its patrons in ways you just can't find in any other pub.
Series: The Hole and Corner [6]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1558699
Comments: 6
Kudos: 59





	Long Day ... Or Was it a Week?

**Author's Note:**

  * For [AsheTarasovich](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts?recipient=AsheTarasovich).



> Do let us know what you think. :)

* * *

“Yes, he’s here,” Sefa affirmed, speaking quietly into her phone. “Just wandered in and is now lying in his normal booth. He did at least take off his coat before he crashed.”

She listened to whoever was on the other end of the conversation whilst she automatically refilled a couple of pints that were close to empty for patrons at the bar. “Of course, I’ll feed him. Yes… yes… I won’t let him leave until you come to collect him. Doubt if he is going to wander far anyway.”

With a nod for those who now had their pints, she set off to see about the comfort of her most exhausted patron. “Quartermaster?” Sefa gently nudged the boney knee falling out over the end of the bench seating, “Alright? Can I get you something? Food? Drink? A pillow?”

“Food…” a hoarse voice muttered from somewhere under the table. “Don’t care… just food.” Then a hand flopped atop the table, index finger raised. “And my pillow, please?”

Sefa only just managed to keep back her chuckle. Even exhausted and a tad whingey, The Quartermaster was ever polite. “Timothy’s here with it now,” she said smiling at her assistant who leaned over the bench, lifting Q’s shoulders slightly to ease the pillow under his head. She’d started keeping it and a warm throw in her office for him after the first time he collapsed in his booth like this. And respectively, they were very much The Quartermaster’s Pillow and The Quartermaster’s Booth, capital letters and all. 

“Ta, ever so.” Head cushioned and body growing snuggly beneath the throw, the disembodied hand slid back beneath the table.

“Always welcome, Quartermaster,” Timothy said with a friendly knock on the bottom of Q’s brogue before leaving to check on Smythson and Winkle from Receivables who were sat playing 3D chess across the pub.

According to the phone call Sefa received, The La Paz mission had apparently gone tits up in spectacular fashion, but just as spectacularly Q and his team had managed to salvage most of it. No one had died except those who should have and injuries to the agents on the ground were relatively minor all things considered, but it had been ‘extraordinarily taxing and took bloody forever.’ In and of itself, neither would typically lay the Quartermaster low like this, but he’d already put in a 38-hour shift ahead of it all. Sefa took stock of Q and his situation and made her own attack plan to see to his rest and recovery until someone came to collect him.

“Close your eyes, Quartermaster. I’ll bring out some fresh chips with that curry sauce you like so much. A small dish so you can pull it down there with you.” She knelt on the bench opposite to twitch closed the curtains of the stained glass windows next to the booth. The sun would be coming up soon, and he didn’t need the glare. “If you feel refreshed enough after that to sit up for some tea, I’ll bring you a hot cuppa and a hearty serving of Toad in the Hole with chef’s creamy mash and onion gravy and a big bowl of sticky toffee pudding with ice cream for afters. Will that work?”

“May I have them loaded?”

“The chips? Of course. B acon, chilies, spring onions, crispy onions, Cheddar cheese, and mozzarella? ” The more calories the man got into him, the better.

“Yes, please. Toad in the Hole. Perfect. Thank you, Sefa. Ready for chips. Going to sleep a tad now,” he mumbled, though it sounded like he was more than halfway there already.

When Sefa returned, chips in hand, the Quartermaster was already snoring. Halfway draped on the bench seating, the other half of him beginning to slip to the floor. 

“Q... Quartermaster...” Sefa gently gave his foot a shake. 

“R! Sitrep!” Q jerked awake with a start, just barely missing whacking his head on the corner of the table, dreaming he was still in ‘mission mode’. “003... your other left...” 

“Q...” Sefa patted him on the shoulder, pushing the plate of chips in front of him. “Food. Mission completed.”

“Oh... oh...” he blinked up owlishly at her as the bleary fog he was in began to retreat a tad. “I... dosed... did I drool?” He wiped at his mouth with the cuff of his cardi.

“No. Not at all. Nothing so undignified.” Sefa smirked at him as if drooling was the most embarrassing thing he had ever done in the Pub. 

To his credit, Q managed to pull himself somewhat upright. He wrapped himself in the blanket and propped himself against the corner of the booth, legs tucked beneath him. Then, propping his pillow on his lap, he pulled the plate of chips to him cushioning it on the pillow rather than eating from it on the table. Still piping hot and mounded with the ‘loaded’ ingredients, he had to use a fork rather than his fingers and moaned in appreciation at the first bite.

“You spoil me, Sefa,” he mumbled around his second bite which he’d dipped into the tangy curry sauce she’d brought along with it. He licked at a glob of sauce in the corner of his mouth and opened his eyes that had closed again; Q was still too near to sleep despite the food. “May I have my cuppa now?” he asked in a small, tired voice, peering up at her with such a pitiful look on his face that the publican was about ready to bundle him up to the flat she shared with her wife, Fiadh, and put him to bed to sleep for a week. 

“Here it is now,” she said, her smile fond. Timothy had circled round again, this time with a small tray containing a teapot, a cup, a small pitcher of milk, and a dish of sugar cubes. Everything Q needed for his tea. “It’s Chamomile. You don’t need caffeine right now, and you know it,” she added when he grimaced with the displeasure she’d expect to see on the face of a small child who’d been told to eat his veg. “Let it brew a tad longer and eat your chips. I’ll be out with your Toad in a Hole in a few minutes.”

“Do we know who’s coming to fetch him this time?” Timothy asked when they reached the bar again. “Sneaky lil bugger. How he manages to slip past security when he’s barely conscious enough to zip up his anorak …”

“They’re sending an agent, I believe, to make sure he gets back to his flat and doesn’t wander too far. At least he is fairly predictable when he escapes,” Sefa couldn’t help but smile at the Quartermaster thoroughly engrossed in his chips with curry sauce smeared across the side of his face. “He just tends to be not too sensible when he’s sleep-deprived.”

“If you ask me, not sleeping brings out his bat shite crazy side.” Timothy began preparing another teapot for the Quartermaster’s ‘second breakfast’ when his Toad in the Hole was ready, just as the phone rang again. 

“She’s right here,” he commented before handing the phone over to her. “For you. Quartermaster check-in.”

“Sefa,” she listened for a moment to the other side of the conversation. “Oh, he’s fine. At the moment I can’t decide if he is orgasmic over his loaded chips with curry sauce or if he is going to fall asleep face first in them. Either way, he’s not going anywhere soon.”

She hung up the phone and poured two pints of cider for the HR clerks who’d just arrived and were sat in the corner by the dartboard. “It’ll be a tad yet before they’re able to send someone to fetch him.”

Timothy slid the glasses onto a tray and slipped out onto the floor. “If we’re taking bets, my money’s on falling asleep face first in his chips. Might want to put a hold on the Toad in a Hold for now.” He nodded back toward Q. 

Sure enough, The Quartermaster was sound asleep again. His head had fallen back against the corner of the booth, slim neck twisted at an angle that would surely give him fits tomorrow. He was snoring loudly. 

None of the other patrons so much as glanced his way, so common was atypical pub behaviour at The Hole and Corner. Particularly from an exhausted Quartermaster. 

A quick chat with Chef had Q’s meal put on hold, and he didn’t so much as stir when Sefa pulled his plate of chips from his hands and sat it on the table. She kneeled over him on the bench, tucking the pillow between his head and the wall so he wouldn’t do himself an injury. The Quartermaster snored on through it all. Even subconsciously, he knew he was in a safe place. 

The next time Sefa glanced his way, Q had managed to slip down in the booth, pillow and all, and now was curled up in a ball of boffin on the booth bench. 

Cuppa somehow still clutched in his hand, she made a quick dash to rescue it from a shattering crash to the floor or being dumped all over the Quartermaster himself. And he was missing his glasses, too, obviously lost somewhere on the floor underneath the table and would need retrieving.

“Quartermaster...” Sefa sighed sitting his cuppa out of the way and sliding the curry sauce back also, lest he end up wearing it also. “Shouldn’t do this to yourself. Babysitting everyone else, but who babysits you...”

“Today, it’s apparently you, Lady Sefa,” said a soft but steely voice from behind her. One she recognised instantly, but even if she hadn’t, there was only one who called her ‘Lady Sefa.’

“You’ve come to fetch him, then?”

“I have,” said Nomi. She leaned an arm against the wall next to the booth and assessed the snoring Quartermaster. “Sorry it took so long. Things got a bit twisted around after he left, but R and M insisted he not be recalled. Perfectly manageable but tangled. Burnt to a crisp, the poor sod. Didn’t expect him to pop round here instead of off home, though.”

“Better than going home to an empty flat sometimes, I think,” Sefa said with a gravitas in her voice that spoke to more than just the Quartermaster’s situation. Espionage could be a decidedly lonely profession, after all. They both watched Q sleep on, snuffling a tad as he dreamt, then, “Right. You rouse him, and I’ll box up some things for takeaway. Once he’s slept himself out, he’ll want more than just chips in his belly.”

By the time Sefa returned with a large bag stuffed to the gills with containers of food, Nomi had managed to get Q upright and into his coat. Though his spectacles were again on his face, Q wasn’t quite steady on his feet, and he clutched his pillow to his chest. The senior agent slung Q’s messenger bag over her shoulder and took the bag of food in one hand, making sure the Quartermaster stayed balanced with her other.

“Make sure he eats all of what’s in that top container  _ before  _ he sleeps,” Sefa insisted. “It’s beef and ale stew. Not a huge portion, but enough that it’ll let him sleep as long he needs and not wake from hunger. The rest can go in his fridge. It’ll all reheat well. Enough for a few meals.”

Q leaned over and kissed Sefa on the cheek. It was their way. He swayed a bit as he did so. “Thank you for putting up with me. I need to go home now. I’ll bring my pillow back before my next shift. Promise.”

“I’ll let you in on a secret,” she whispered in his ear, loud enough for Nomi to hear, too. “I’ve three more like it in my office. Each one for just you.”

  
  
  
  
  


**Author's Note:**

> “If you have consumed what we have laboured and invested in to create, and if you have found any enjoyment in it, please tell us so that we can recharge enough to do this again.” ~ kdreeva via Tumblr


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